A Father's Love
by Momatu
Summary: This is what I believe would've happened the day after Charlie visited Bella for the first time after Renesmee was born. Written for the Side Character Contest. First Place winner, Judges & Public votes


**This story was written for the Side Character Contest. First Place winner, Judges & Public votes**

 **Thank you to my two betas, Raum & o2shea, for the super fast beta. Any remaining mistakes are my fault for not stopping fiddling around with it.**

 **This is what I believe would've happened the day after Charlie visited Bella for the first time after Renesmee was born.**

 **DISCLAIMER:** Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.

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The early morning sky was the same shade of gray as battleships in old WWII movies. The weatherman had said they'd see the sun today, but it didn't look likely. Charlie popped the trunk. At least there was one thing in the world he still recognized, the weatherman getting it wrong.

He gathered his gear. He needed to get away, to clear his head. To try to make sense of a world that no longer made sense. So he was doing what he'd done all his life. He was going fishing. Fishing was normal. Fishing was sane. He knew where he was with fish.

Fish didn't turn into damn wolves.

He slammed the trunk shut and headed to his favorite spot, but after only a few steps he shuddered, his tackle box dropping from his hand and clattering on the ground. He doubled over, his head in his hands.

What the hell had happened to his little girl? Bella looked like Bella—but didn't. His Bella had always been beautiful, but now . . . Now she was breathtaking.

Now, she looked like _them_.

Charlie shook his head. No. He wasn't doing this now. He drew a breath and ran his hand over his face before picking up his tackle box. He was going to crack up if he didn't make himself stop thinking.

He was going fishing, and he wasn't going to think about anything. Not about kids he'd known since they day they were born turning into wolves. Not about why his daughter suddenly looked like a super model.

Not about why her skin didn't feel like skin anymore.

Not about why her hands felt like ice.

Not about why that baby had her eyes.

Swallowing, he tightened his grip on the handle of his tackle box like it was his lifeline to sanity. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and forced his feet to move. He needed to get a grip. He had to. If he didn't, Bella was going to have to leave. He could accept anything but that.

Anything.

It was easier said than done, though, keeping his mind from returning to everything he was trying so hard to not think about. Reaching his spot, he breathed deep and looked around. He needed to keep it together. He pressed his lips firmly together. He needed to not crack up.

He got himself settled and baited and cast his line.

Then, he stood there.

Oh, God. Bella. What had happened to her? What had they done to his little girl?

His breath shook, and his chest tightened. His jaw trembled, and he tried to clench his teeth to make it stop. He needed to not fall apart. He could hardly swallow around the lump in his throat.

Bella.

He dropped his head and squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his thumb and forefinger against his closed lids. _Breathe, Charlie. Just breathe._

Bella didn't even have Bella's eyes anymore—that muddy brown color was not the color of his daughter's eyes—but that baby did.

A month. It had only been a month. There was just no way . . . but that baby was no orphaned niece they were adopting. There was no way, but there was no question either. His Bella, his baby had had a baby. How, he didn't know. When, he couldn't imagine. But that little baby was his Bella's. His Bella's and that boy's. He could see his daughter in the little girl's face, but that damn boy's features were there, too. She was theirs. The way Bella had cradled her, the fierce way she'd claimed the baby as hers when he'd begun to suggest that maybe Carlisle and Esme could take her, if his own eyes hadn't told him the truth, Bella herself had.

Three months old Edward had said she was—the size of a three-month-old at least.

" _She's younger in some ways, more mature in others."_

No three-month-old Charlie'd ever seen had a full set of teeth, but that little girl did. Three-month-olds didn't wave at people either, but Renesmee did.

" _Renesmee. Like Renee and Esme put together . . . Carlie, like Carlisle and Charlie. . . ."_

Charlie cleared his throat. His eyes burned.

 _Renesmee Carlie._

He stared at his float bobbing on the surface of the water and cleared his throat again.

It had only been a month from the wedding to seeing that baby on his daughter's lap. Charlie scoffed. He could say that now— _only_ a month. That month had been the longest of his life while he'd been living it. He hadn't known it was possible to feel that much fear. Did she know what he'd been through those weeks? How could she let him go through that? Why hadn't she called him? Even if she had been pregnant, so what? Why couldn't she just have told him? He'd have been there for her. She was his little girl. She was his everything. And she was going to leave. She was just going to leave without saying a word. She hadn't wanted to, she'd told him, but she was still going to.

Charlie's breath shook. He bit his lips hard and breathed through his nose until he pulled himself together.

It was a crisp fall day. There was a damp chill in the air, but there was no breeze. All was still.

Footsteps came up behind him, and Charlie swore under his breath. The last thing he wanted was anyone else around.

"Hello, Charlie."

Charlie gritted his teeth. And that was nearly the last someone he wanted around. There was only one other someone he wanted around less right then. He turned to the newcomer, but he said nothing.

Carlisle nodded at his silence.

"I understand if you want me to leave."

Charlie inhaled a deep breath, ready to lay into the man who'd lied to him for so long, who'd kept him away from his daughter, but he exhaled the breath without a word.

Carlisle stepped up to him, his own tackle box and rod in his hands.

"I've never fished in my life. At least, if I ever did, it was long ago and I don't remember it," he said as he set the box down—brand new and top of the line, of course.

Charlie remained silent. He had no interest in small talk, least of all with someone who'd led him to believe his daughter was dangerously ill.

"I won't beat around the bush."

"That'd be a change."

The other man at least had the decency to look apologetic. It set Charlie's teeth on edge.

"My family, our kind—"

"Bella's kind," Charlie snapped, cutting him off and glaring at him. "My daughter's kind."

A pause, then he agreed. "Yes. Bella's kind."

Charlie exhaled again, the sound something like a bull in front of a red cape.

"Now you know why we left," Carlisle said.

The accusations had been lined up on the tip of Charlie's tongue and ready to be fired, but at Carlisle's words, a brick wall sprang up in front of them. The whole family had packed up and left out of the blue, and he'd cursed them to hell and back for hurting his little girl. Now, though . . . now, their sudden disappearing act took on a new light.

Protecting her.

It knocked Charlie back a step. A step he wasn't ready to give.

Carlisle looked away, his eyes out on the water. "We tried to talk him out of it, all of us. But he was resolute. He loves her so much. He didn't want this for her. None of us did. He chose to leave her because it was the only way he could see to protect her ** **.**** Nothing else would've driven him away from her side. I know what it did to Bella. We all do, and there are no words to express how sorry we are. But you don't know what it did to him. Leaving her, giving her up, knowing he was hurting her, it ripped him to shreds. He was inconsolable, but he believed she'd get over him and move on with her life. A life he couldn't give her." A spasm of pain twisted his face, and it was a pain Charlie recognized. "That was his hope. It didn't work," he said in a whisper.

Charlie stared at him for a long moment before looking out at the water as well. He swallowed hard as he remembered Edward sitting next to Bella on the couch at the Cullens' home, his arm around her, how Bella had leaned into him, and he couldn't deny they looked right together. They fit, like they'd been made for each other.

"I've never seen two people more happy to be together," Carlisle said after a minute, echoing Charlie's own thoughts. "I think because they know what it was like being apart, they value being together all the more."

Charlie dropped his eyes.

"Jake said she knew about all this."

"She did. As long as she's known the truth, her first concern has been protecting you and her mother. I can't stress to you enough how vital it is that no one suspect we are anything other than what we claim to be."

"If it's such an all-fired secret, why'd he tell her in the first place? If he wanted so much to protect her, why'd he drag her into all this?"

"He didn't. After the almost-accident with Tyler's van—"

Charlie shuddered at the reminder of that day, but then his head snapped up. In the ER, Bella'd said Edward had pushed her out of the way. Charlie'd been too beside himself at the time to think about it, but a normal person didn't have the reflexes to push another person out of the way of a van careening toward them. And even if by some miracle he had, he'd have been hit himself. Charlie's eyes drifted over the surface of the water.

"After that, she knew he was something, but not what." Carlisle smiled, remembering. "I believe she asked him about Kryptonite and radioactive spiders." Then he turned serious. "She's very persistent. There's no dissuading her once she's set her mind to something. But in the end, it was Jacob Black who told her everything."

Charlie's eyes widened. If Jake had shown Bella the way he'd shown Charlie—

"In his defense," Carlisle said, "he didn't know himself that the stories were true."

"Stories?"

"He told her the old Quileute legends. The Protectors and the Cold Ones. He hadn't phased himself yet. He believed the legends were just old stories."

She really had known, then. Charlie passed the back of his hand across his lips. Bella'd chosen this. Whatever exactly _this_ was. He drew a breath and let it out. She was going to pick up and leave without a word, and whether or not it was something she wanted, it was something she'd chosen.

"So, what lie did you all have cooked up to feed me in the end? That my daughter died of some unnamed disease? What story did you have for why I couldn't even bury my own daughter's body?"

Charlie'd begun speaking in anger, but by the end, his throat had tightened so badly he'd barely gotten the words out. He looked away and drew a sharp breath through his nose. He was not going to break down. Not here, not in front of this man.

"If you think lying to you was easy for me, for any of us, you're wrong."

"Didn't stop you. And it doesn't answer my question."

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Charlie. "What about Edward's real parents? Did you tell them he died too?" Were there two people out there somewhere grieving their son?

Carlisle held eye contact, and his law enforcement training told Charlie the other man was debating with himself what to tell, what to conceal. Finally, he said, "They were already dead themselves."

Charlie thought that was all the answer he was going to get, but he went on.

"There was a pandemic. Edward and his mother were dying. His father had already died months earlier. His mother begged me to save him, to do everything in my power, what others could not. It was her dying wish. She succumbed not long after.

"I stood over his bed afterward, watching the disease take him like it had so many others, not knowing what to do. I could hear the fluid rattling in his lungs as he struggled to breathe. I could see the cyanosis deepen across his face. There was nothing anyone could do. He would join his parents soon unless I prevented it. In the end, I couldn't let him die."

Charlie's mouth went dry. He felt as if the ground beneath him had just wobbled back and forth, nearly knocking him off his feet.

"And Bella?"

"It hadn't been settled yet, but yes. My intention was to tell you she'd died and that her wishes had been that her body be cremated."

Charlie tried to breathe but couldn't. He felt sick.

"It was the safest way. For you as well as for us."

"What stopped you?" Charlie spat.

"Bella."

Charlie's eyes burned.

"She couldn't bear it," Carlisle said. "She was heartsick at causing you pain. It was tearing her apart. She didn't want to lose you."

Charlie cleared his throat, but the lump lodged there wouldn't be budged.

"Above all else, though, she wanted to keep you safe."

"You think I care about that? She's my daughter!"

"And you're her father. She cared about it."

"They why are you telling me all this now? If it's not safe?"

"Precisely because you're her father. Yesterday you said you didn't want to know everything, that you didn't want details, but that was the shock talking. It would never have lasted. Before long, you'd want answers."

"And you want me to believe you'll give me those answers?"

"I told you how Edward came to be with me. Any answers I can give you, I will. I won't lie to you again. If it's something I can't answer without putting you or us in danger, I'll tell you so."

Charlie clenched his teeth.

"Your knowing too much would put Bella in danger as much as it would you."

Air rushed from Charlie's lungs, and he sagged. That had hit him in the gut.

Carlisle gave up the pretense of fishing and put his things away.

"You spoke yesterday of returning to the house today," Carlisle said. "I hope you will. And that you'll consider our home your own as much as it is Bella's. The door is always open."

"You mean that?"

"I do. We have a granddaughter to dote on."

A spot inside Charlie's chest felt warm as he remembered holding Renesmee. That little baby really was Bella's. She was his grandchild. He had a granddaughter.

"She's truly one of a kind." Carlisle said. "All grandparents think their grandchild is unique, but ours really is." Tackle box and rod in hand, he looked at the sky. "You should probably pack it in for the day. It'll be raining in a few minutes."

"Not calling for it."

"Alice is." Carlisle's smile turned to a smirk. "My money's on her every time."

Charlie watched him go, and then packed up his gear. He had a daughter to see and a granddaughter to get to know. Hell, he had a son-in-law to get to know. Tossing his things in the trunk and slamming the lid, he felt lighter than he had an hour ago.

Before he pulled out of the lot, the first rain drop hit the windshield.


End file.
